


Bloodstained Pavement

by asexualjuliet



Category: Goodbye Stranger - Rebecca Stead
Genre: Blood, Car Accidents, Gen, I reread portions of this book five times to get the details right, Me?? The only one in this fandom?? It’s more likely than you’d think., Pre-Canon, not that you can tell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 07:23:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20689697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexualjuliet/pseuds/asexualjuliet
Summary: Sherm Russo is eight and a half when Bridge Barsamian gets hit by the black BMW on the corner of Broadway and 114th Street.





	Bloodstained Pavement

**Author's Note:**

> I’m likely the only one in this fandom but here.

Sherm Russo is eight and a half when Bridge Barsamian gets hit by the black BMW on the corner of Broadway and 114th Street. 

His dad said he would be outside soon to take him to Chuck E. Cheese, but how soon is soon? 

Sherm sits on the front steps of his house and counts the blue cars and red cars that drive by. He’s at seventeen blue and eleven red when Bridge Barsamian flies past his father’s double-parked VW bug on her red-and-white rollerblades and yells something to Tabitha Patel, who’s on a scooter behind her. 

Sherm watches Bridge zoom down the street, all thoughts of blue cars forgotten, because _ wow, that looks so cool! _ He’s about to go inside and ask his mother for a pair of his own rollerblades when it happens. 

It’s sort of like time slows down. 

Realistically, it doesn’t, of course, but as Bridge Barsamian turns around to say something to Tabitha, she hurtles around the corner and straight into the street. 

There are a lot of things that happen next. Sherm has to make a list. 

  1. His father comes outside and says “Okay, time to go, Sherm.”
  2. A black BMW crosses Broadway, going fast. 
  3. Two mothers scream from the sidewalk.
  4. Tabitha Patel stops dead in her tracks. 
  5. Bridge turns around and sees the car in front of her. 
  6. The black BMW slams into Bridge Barsamian. 
  7. Bridge goes up in the air. She looks like the rag doll Nonna made when Sherm was little that he used to use to play catch with Nonno Gio in the backyard. 
  8. The BMW stops. 
  9. His father runs down the street towards Broadway. 
  10. Bridge falls back down on the pavement. 
  11. Nonna comes outside. 
  12. Sherm gets up and follows his father. 
  13. He runs past the two screaming mothers. One of them is on her phone, calling 911, and the other is running toward Bridge. 
  14. He runs past Tabitha Patel, whose eyes are shut tight.
  15. He gets a good look at Bridge Barsamian. 

That’s when the list stops, because Bridge’s limp body is the most terrible thing Sherm has ever seen and his mind can’t think enough to formulate a list anymore. 

There’s blood everywhere. That’s the first thing he notices because when he says everywhere, he means _ everywhere._ Bridge’s hot pink bike helmet is cracked in two and one of the mothers he ran past runs towards her. He sees his father picks Bridge up and bring her to the curb. Her eyes are closed. 

“Papà?” Sherm asks. 

“Go home, _ bambino_,” his father says. 

Sherm doesn’t know when the tears started to fall down his face, but they obviously did at some point, because he’s sobbing now and salty tears run down his chin. 

He runs home, past the woman who is probably Bridge’s mother because she’s crying and sitting next to the bloody little girl with the rollerblades. Past the lady calling 911 on her phone and past Tabitha Patel and her purple scooter. Past the double-parked yellow VW bug outside his house and onto the front steps. 

Nonna hugs him tight. “_Cucciolo_, don’t cry,” she says. 

“I’m scared, Nonna!” Sherm cries, his tears staining her apron. Nonna leads him inside. 

“Oh, Shermie, I know,” she says, pulling away from the hug and kissing him on the forehead. “Have a cookie, _ tesoro_.”

She grabs a newly-baked anise cookie from the cooling rack on the counter and hands it to Sherm, who accepts it before wiping his face on his sweatshirt sleeve. 

“_Grazie_, Nonna,” he says through a mouthful of cookie. 

“Shermie! Not all at once.”

Sherm laughs and his Nonna silently thanks the Lord that she can still see the sparkles in his eyes. 

—

When Sherm wakes up, it’s late. The moon is silver and the starlight coming through his bedroom window reminds him of the song his mother likes to sing when she’s cooking, from the musical they took him to see when he was seven that he can’t remember the name of. 

Carefully, he sneaks out of his room and tiptoes down to the front of the house without making a sound. Sherm cracks open the front door and steps onto the front steps. 

_ In the rain, the pavement shines like silver, _ he hears his mother’s voice sing in his head, because the sidewalk _ does _ shine. 

Sherm is at the corner of 114th and Broadway when the pavement stops shining. 

“Bloodstained pavement” is a term Sherm has heard once in a song, but he’s never really thought about it before. 

The portion of the sidewalk that Sherm’s father carried Bridge to and set her down on isn’t covered in blood like it was before. 

It’s like someone tried to wipe it away but didn’t do a very good job so they just left an ugly stain, orangish instead of red but definitely still there. 

Looking at the stain, Sherm decides that he doesn’t want rollerblades anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> All mistakes are my own, please let me know if you see any!
> 
> Kudos/Comments are greatly appreciated!


End file.
